An Israeli missile incinerated a van in south Lebanon, killing 20 people, among them 15 children, in the deadliest single attack of the four-day-old campaign launched by Israel after Hizbollah captured two of its soldiers and killed eight.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13996.htm

The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Saturday that “Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hizbullah’s activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13998.htm

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Israeli Air Force Will Likely Make a Pre-emptive Strike Against Syria

Stratfor Intelligence Report

The longer the IDF waits to push into Lebanon, and the more brigades it amasses, the more likely the Israelis are planning to drive all the way into areas south of Beirut. A push to the Litani would involve about five brigades; a deeper invasion would involve seven to 12.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13995.htm

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What I am watching in Lebanon each day is an outrage

By Robert Fisk in Mdeirej, Central Lebanon

European politicians have talked about Israel’s “disproportionate” response to Wednesday’s capture of its soldiers. They are wrong. What I am now watching in Lebanon is an outrage. How can there be any excuse for the 73 dead Lebanese blown these past three days?www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14000.htm

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Defiant Nasrallah Warns: ‘We are ready for open war’

By Leila Hatoum and Mohammed Zaatari

“Our homes will not be the only ones to be destroyed, our children will not be the only ones to die … Those days are over I promise you. You [Israelis] must take responsibility for what your government has done,” he said.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14003.htm

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The Real Aim

THE REAL aim is to change the regime in Lebanon and to install a puppet government.

Israel’s response to its soldiers’ capture is part of a hamfisted attempt to redraw the region’s map

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb in Beirut

The capture of three Israeli soldiers by the Lebanese resistance movement, Hizbullah, to bargain for prisoner exchange should come as no surprise – least of all to Israel, which must bear its own responsibility for the abductions and is using this conflict to pursue its wider strategic aims.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13999.htm

“If Israel commits another act of idiocy and aggresses Syria, this will be the same as an aggression against the entire Islamic world and it will receive a stinging response,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.tinyurl.com/rzvl4

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IDF officer: Israel has no plans to attack Syria :

Responding to a report in a pan-Arab daily newspaper that Israel presented Damascus with an ultimatum, an Israel Defense Forces officer said Saturday that targeting Syria is currently not on Israel’s agenda.www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738315.html

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Israel strikes near Lebanese-Syrian border:

Israel fired rockets near the Lebanese-Syrian border on Saturday, heightening fears that it could hit Syria, as well as Lebanon, in a campaign to dislodge Syrian-backed Hizbollah fighters from its northern border.tinyurl.com/p4nnq

The body of one of the four missing Israel Defense Forces soldiers on a warship that was attacked by Hezbollah off the coast of Lebanon was found Saturday aboard the damaged vessel, military officials said.www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738695.html

The move was announced after Israeli aircraft rocketed runways at Beirut’s international airport and blasted the main Beirut-Damascus highway, tightening an air, sea and land blockade of Lebanon.tinyurl.com/emsjz

The captive soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon have already been deleted from the public agenda here. This is about destroying the Hizballah and Hamas once and for all, not about bringing home the soldiers.electronicintifada.net/v2/printer5003.shtml

Hundreds of Palestinian ‘suspects’ have been kidnapped from their homes and will never stand trialtinyurl.com/popn4

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‘Israel Has Reached the End of the Road’:

Although Israel attempts to instill terror in its neighbors and in its occupied population, its gig is up. Israel has lost its ability to terrify, said Ali Abunimeh in a radio interview. It can no longer impose its will by sheer brute force. It worked for sixty plus years, but the genie is out of the bottle now, he maintains. Israel has reached the end of the road.umkahlil.blogspot.com/2006/07/israel-has-reached-end-of-road.html

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Iraq: At least 39 killed as U.S. occupation continues:

Gunmen wearing police-style camouflage abducted the head of Iraq’s national Olympic committee Ahmed al-Hadjiya, and about 30 other people including bodyguards and committee staff as they met in Baghdad on Saturdaywww.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15618617.htm

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Iraq: 16 Bodies Found,:

According to a police source in al-Hillah, eight bodies were found in Alexandria, 60 kilometres south of Baghdad, four bodies in al- Latifiya, 40 kilometres south of Baghdad, and four bodies in Jarf al- Sakhr, 50 kilometres south of Baghdad.tinyurl.com/lz6xo

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Liberal Assault on Joe Could Hurt Democrats in Other Senate Races:

Some Democrats are nervous that if Senator Joseph Lieberman loses his primary to an antiwar challenger, thousands of hawkish Jewish Democrats who see the Connecticut lawmaker as their standard-bearer will either abandon the party or sit out the November election.www.forward.com/articles/8099

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Daily Show exposes Stevens’ net neutrality expertise:

Eighty-two year old Sen. Ted Stevens’ complete inability to comprehend the internet would be kind of cute, were it not for the fact that the following soundbites were taken from his 11-minute speech regarding a bill that would have increased network neutrality mandates.www.alternet.org/bloggers/degraw/38934

An Israeli plane dropped a bomb on to the home of a Shia Muslim cleric. He was killed. So was his wife. So were eight of his children. One was decapitated. All they could find of a baby was its head and torso which a young villager brandished in fury in front of the cameras. Then the planes visited another home in Dweir and disposed of a family of seven.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13978.htm

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Uncensored News Reports From Across The Middle East

Warning

This video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war and should only be viewed by a mature audience

A report from Lebanon’s south, ravaged by retaliatory Israeli strikes.

By Mitchell Prothero

Why do they involve children? She was not attacking Tel Aviv,” he says of Akkash’s 6-month-old daughter, killed in the strike. “She was sleeping with her family. I hope the American people think of a 6-month-old-girl killed with an American fighter, flown by an Israeli pilot. If she was with a soldier at the front, then these things happen. But she was asleep with her family.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13987.htm

MIT professor Noam Chomsky says the US and Israel are punishing Palestinians for electing Hamas, and says Hezbollah’s capture of Israeli soldiers subjects Lebanese “to terror and possible extreme disaster” from Israeli strikes. We also get comments from Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani in Jerusalem.

Ostensibly, this bombing campaign started because of the soldier’s capture. To the outside world it might seem like an easy decision for Palestinians: Let the soldier go, and the siege will end. Yet for Gazans, even in the face of this brutal violence, another decision comes, not with ease, but with resolve. He is one soldier who was captured in a military operation. Today, several hundred Palestinian children and women are locked in Israeli prisons. They deserve their freedom no less than he does.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13985.htm

A woman and her 5-year-old grandson were killed, and four others were injured, when a Katyusha rocket fired by Hezbollah slammed into a home in Moshav Meron on Friday evening.www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738632.html

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Israeli shelling kills Palestinian in Gaza:

Israeli planes later destroyed a bridge in the central Gaza Strip, wounding a civilian, Palestinian security sources said. It was the fourth bridge destroyed by Israel since the offensive in Gaza began two weeks ago.tinyurl.com/et8u8

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War pimp alert:

Israel says Lebanon will hide WMDs for Iran :

In remarks made before the UN Security Council today, Ambassador Dan Gillerman claimed that Lebanon was willing to work with Iran to hide weapons of mass destruction.tinyurl.com/gweha

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Author of Iran insignia lie invited to White House:

Canada’s National Post has apologized for running a fabricated story that Iran passed a new law requiring Jews to wear a yellow insignia. Oddly enough, or maybe not so odd at that, the author of this deceit, Iranian exile journalist Amir Taheri, was invited to the White House on May 30 as one of a group of “Iraq experts” to consult with US President George W. Bush.tinyurl.com/flqed

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Justin Raimondo : Israel Crosses the Line : The Israeli offensive against Iran – until now, purely polemical – morphed into military action the moment the IDF crossed the border into Lebanon and took on Hezbollah. As our regular readers know, this turn of events was predicted in this space three months ago:

Chris Floyd: Fresh Hell in the Holy Land :

To say that the “government of Lebanon” – and thus, by extension, the ordinary people of Lebanon who, as usual, are bearing the deadly brunt of the Israel’s assault – is responsible for Hezbollah’s attack is an outright lie, and the Israeli leaders know thiswww.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9301

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Jewish Extremist Group: We kidnapped 2 Palestinians :

Gilad Shalhevet Brigades’ organization claims it kidnapped two Palestinians, residents of the Jerusalem area. Group says hostages will be released only in exchange for Israeli soldiers abducted in Gaza, Lebanonwww.informationclearinghouse.info/article13988.htm

The United States has vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have demanded a halt to Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip. The veto drew a sharp rebuke from Arab representatives.www.payvand.com/news/06/jul/1123.html

“The out-of-bounds military activity in Lebanon over the last few days has escalated dangerously and may make the already critical situation in the Middle East out of control,” Bakoyannis said in a statement.tinyurl.com/gknjb

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Iraqi Militia Leader Lashes Out at U.S. and Israel :

Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr said on today that Iraqis would not “sit by with folded hands” while Israel struck at Lebanon, signaling a possible increase in attacks from his mercurial militia, the Mahdi Army.tinyurl.com/jctja

British and Afghan forces battled Taliban holdouts Thursday after repelling a brazen insurgent attack on a police headquarters a day earlier in a southern town, killing at least 19 militants, a local official said.tinyurl.com/gztdd

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9 Taliban killed in fighting in southern Afghanistan:

Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces killed nine militants after suspected Taliban fighters attacked two army checkpoints in the latest fighting to rock southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Friday.tinyurl.com/ej7uj

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Treatment of US suspects at home mirrors that of terror suspects in military custody :

Human Rights advocates see discrepancies between the official US Government account and a non-government organization (NGO) “shadow report,” and cite disturbing examples of human rights abuses that have gone unchecked within the US and unreported by the official government report to the UN Human Rights Committee.www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Report__0713.html

In a thinly veiled hint at Pakistan’s involvement, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the serial blasts here were carried out by terror modules “instigated, inspired and supported by elements across the border”.www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200607141973.htm

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Bomber kills Shia leader in Pakistan:

Allama Hassan Turabi, a Shia Muslim cleric, has been killed in a suicide attack in Karachi.tinyurl.com/ffp2w

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said that his country will keep boosting bilateral cooperation with Cuba, as he responded to the latest anti-Cuba report approved by George Bush and promoted by the so-called “Commission for Assistance to Free Cuba”.www.ain.cubaweb.cu/idioma/ingles/2006/jul12chavez-cuba.htm

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The US Military Descends on Paraguay:

In July 2005 hundreds of US soldiers arrived with planes, weapons and ammunition. Washington’s funding for counterterrorism efforts in Paraguay soon doubled, and protests against the military presence hit the streets.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13982.htm

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James Buchan: Oil: We’re addicted :

If India and China and other countries in the developing world used petroleum at the rate of the rich member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, world consumption of oil would be not today’s 80 million barrels a day but 240 million.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13984.htm

GQ has released a big piece on Ralph Reed today, with one gem in particular: a plan hatched by Reed and Jack Abramoff which sounds suspiciously like “mortgaging old black people,” as a former Reed associate told the magazine.www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001121.php

he first full-length documentary film to present the complete picture of the series of events outside Waco, Texas during 1993 that resulted in the shooting of 4 federal agents and the deaths of 86 men, women, and children of the Branch Davidian religious sect.tinyurl.com/pn4cp

There is one certain bet that Syria will rely on; that despite all Israel’s threats of inflicting “pain” on Lebanon, this war will run out of control until – as has so often happened in the past – Israel itself calls for a ceasefire and releases prisoners. Then the international big-hitters will arrive and make their way to the real Lebanese capital – Damascus, not Beirut – and appeal for help.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13975.htm

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What Are They Fighting For

By Prof. Tanya Reinhart

Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army’s war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13974.htm

Israeli jets fired on the Lebanese air force base in Rayak, in eastern Lebanon near Syria. Israeli jets also hit an air force base in Qlaiat, in northern Lebanon also not far from Syria.tinyurl.com/n89c5

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Beirut passengers stranded; airlines cancel flights :

Thousands of passengers traveling to Beirut are stranded all across the Middle East due to the closure of the Beirut airport following the Israeli attack on it.tinyurl.com/nmsqm

The Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah said it had fired 60 rockets at Nahariya, a coastal city south of the Lebanese border.tinyurl.com/qmbhd

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EU accuses Israel of ‘disproportionate use of force’ in Lebanon :

“The presidency deplores the loss of civilian lives and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. The imposition of an air and sea blockade on Lebanon cannot be justified.”www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/738183.html

A senior government official has blamed Syria for providing “shelter and logistical support for Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal” and noted that Iran provides Hizbullah terrorists with funds and weapons.www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=107244

The capture of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit is a clear act of self-defense. One of America’s top and most courageous international law professors wrote me yesterday: “Insist on calling Gilad Shalit a prisoner of war, for he is one.”tinyurl.com/ksskp

More than 3,000 pro-Israel evangelical Christians will be in town next week for a “Washington/Israel summit” to push the Bush administration toward stronger support for the Jewish state.tinyurl.com/ebmcu

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Administration To Request Another $110 Billion For Iraq Next Year :

Yesterday, the White House released its FY2007 mid-session budget review with great fanfare, celebrating its projection that the deficit will be nearly $300 billion this year.thinkprogress.org/2006/07/12/110-billion/

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Britain prepares secrets case over Iraq memo :

Details of the still-undisclosed memo began to leak out, first in a Daily Mirror article reporting that during the Bush-Blair conversation the president, shockingly, had suggested that allied forces should bomb the Arab television network Al Jazeera.www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/12/news/britain.php

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Dahr Jamail: “This is going to be a big war.”:

Now that the U.S. military/Rumsfeld (who was just in Baghdad) and Khalilzad have declared war on the Shia Mehdi Army, accusing them of terrorism, all bets are off. Of course, the timing of this with Israelis attacks against Hezbollah couldn’t be more perfect. Coincidence?dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000417.php

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19 “Taliban” killed in attack:

Nineteen “Taliban fighters” were killed by Afghan and coalition forces when they attacked a southern district headquarters, officials said.tinyurl.com/kp78t

According to a recent report from the Veterans Administration, more than 50,000 vets from Iraq and Afghanistan are believed to be suffering from mental health problems — nearly half of them from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSDcbs11tv.com/topstories/topstories_story_193204627.html

Although nobody has as yet claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attacks in Mumbai, in which hundreds have died, it seems just possible that British extremists may have had a hand in them somewhere.tinyurl.com/judha

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East Timor: Too Many Men With Too Many Guns :

In the distance we could hear gunshots – an East Timorese policeman and soldier were trying to kill each other. All my neighbours wanted to know was when the Australian troops were arriving. Some prayed. Others were constantly on their mobiles. Some managed to sleep.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13973.htm

What’s been called the biggest arms transfer since World War II – the shipping of leftover weapons from Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war to combat zones in the Middle East and elsewhere – may not have come to an end, despite a year-old moratorium on Bosnian arms sales.www.csmonitor.com/2006/0710/p12s01-woeu.html

Russian President Vladimir Putin has already spectacularly preempted this weekend’s Group of Eight (G8) summit in St Petersburg with his own bit of Pipelineistan news. Putin announced in Shanghai on June 15 that “Gazprom is ready to support the construction of a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and India with financial resources and technology”.www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/HG14Dj03.html

Russia and the United States have resolved a key issue over Russia’s acceptance to the World Trade Organization, and a final agreement could be signed by the end of the week, a Finance Ministry spokesman said Thursday.www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4044323.html

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Mexican govt confirms no president-elect decided yet :

Mexico does not have a president-elect now, because the Federal Election Tribunal (TRIFE) has not yet ruled on the issue, Mexican Presidential Spokesman Ruben Aguilar Valenzuela said on Wednesday.www.keralanext.com/news/?id=778382

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López Obrador plans protests over Mexican poll:

A top aide to Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftwing candidate in Mexico’s disputed presidential election, on Thursday vowed to organise mass protests in the event of an unfavourable ruling by the country’s electoral tribunal.tinyurl.com/jqp5e

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Citgo to cut off 1,800 U.S. gas stations:

Venezuela-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp. has decided to stop distributing gasoline to 1,800 independently owned U.S. stations, shedding a lackluster segment of its business while forcing the owners of those stations to find other suppliers.www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4043582.html

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Mounties had mole in alleged terror cell:

A well-known member of Toronto’s Muslim community worked as a police agent to infiltrate an alleged terrorism cell that police say was planning attacks in Canada, the Toronto Star has learnedtinyurl.com/n75mw

The report detailed the case of Yassine Ouassif. Last November Yassine’s green card was taken away from him when he crossed the border from Canada. Yassine was then sent home to San Francisco and told to contact a counterterrorism agent at the FBI.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13971.htm

Former FBI special agent Lynn Wingate was sentenced to probation for her role in a 2002 criminal case involving the use of confidential government information to manipulate the stocks of small companies.tinyurl.com/fplxs

I began researching the mainstream media coverage of the controversy regarding the attacks of 9/11/2001, when reading an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Newspaper, dated June 29th, 2006. It was titled, “Sept. 11 claim stirs UW probe — Instructor says U.S. planned the attacks to provoke war.” This led to my discovery of some wild conspiracy theorists that endanger our government and media establishments, with quite frankly insane assertions.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13969.htm

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Tony Blair’s top bag man arrested :

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s top fundraiser, Lord Levy, was arrested Wednesday in an investigation into whether Labour party leaders improperly nominated financial backers for seats in the House of Lords, Levy’s spokesman said.tinyurl.com/hocdn

So much for evidence-based medicine. Drug approval decisions have little to do with evidence and everything to do with materialistic greed and cold, hard cash. That cash is doled out to decision-makers in the form of research grants, consulting fees and outright bribes.www.newstarget.com/019608.html

Then we found the body of his son, Yehya, who is in fourth grade. It was a headless body. We found the head in the hallway of a neighbor’s house, from Abass family. I knew Yehya and the girl well.tinyurl.com/zsxnk

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Born Free

Exclusive Uncensored Interview with Mordechai Vanunu

By Eileen Fleming

The Israelis have this very beautiful article about freedom and liberty but they want to destroy anyone who criticizes them for revealing the truth to the world. The world must look and see what kind of democracy Israel is when one speaks out the truth.” – Mordechai Vanunu

On the story we almost never hear about—the Palestinian one—and an anniversary few of us have ever considered

By Sandy Tolan

Besieged Palestinian families, trapped in a locked-up Gaza, are in many cases down to one meal a day, eaten in candlelight. Yet their desperate conditions go largely ignored by a world accustomed to extreme Israeli measures in the name of security: nearly 10,000 Palestinians locked in Israeli jails, many without charge; 4,000 Gaza and West Bank homes demolished since 2000 and hundreds of acres of olive groves plowed under; three times as many civilians killed as in Israel, many due to “collateral damage” in operations involving the assassination of suspected militants.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13965.htm

The news the world hears about Iraq and the situation in the country itself are wholly different. People are being driven out of their homes and areas by force and killed in the streets, and the Americans, Iranians and the Puppets talk of national conferences and progress.tinyurl.com/jx8cz

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Merchants of death in Iraq:

“This force is not totally unknown to us here in Fallujah,” Ahmed, who witnessed the incident from a nearby house told Inter Press Service (IPS). “They are a special force of Americans that assassinates more people than it arrests.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13968.htm

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Halliburton to lose exclusive Army deal:

The Army is discontinuing a controversial multibillion-dollar deal with oil services giant Halliburton for logistical support to U.S. troops worldwide, a decision that could cut deeply into the firm’s dominance of government contracting in Iraq.tinyurl.com/kqayw

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Halt business With Pentagon:

Twelve major suppliers of petroleum products to the Pentagon, including ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Valero, have been asked by a group of peace organizations and activists, including Cindy Sheehan and Howard Zinn, to stop doing business with the U.S. military until all U.S. troops and mercenary forces are out of Iraq.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13964.htm

Sharply escalating its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, Israel dropped a quarter-ton bomb on a home Wednesday. Nine members of a family, including seven children, were killed.www.freenewmexican.com/news/46314.html

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UN impotence laid bare as Gaza suffers :

Mr Bolton’s statement made clear that the US would not seriously attempt to rein in Israel. And UN sources said that despite the “balancing” modifications to the Qatari security council draft resolution, a US veto remained likely if it were put to a vote. In Gaza, meanwhile, the suffering goes on.www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329526977-103552,00.html

The Israeli government’s behaviour at present is to be condemned (Report, July 8). The failure of our government to speak out against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian population is complicit with those actions of the EU, the US and Israel.www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,,1818200,00.html

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Israeli use of poisonous material alleged:

The ministry called on the international community and human rights organization “to send medical committees to examine the wounded and verify the existence of poisonous material in their bodies caused by Israeli weapons.”tinyurl.com/l484k

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The Influence of Israel and its American Lobby over US Middle East Policy :

The apparent ability of Israel, one of the world’s smallest countries, to shape the Middle East policies of the world’s remaining superpower has been a source of puzzlement, conjecture, and constant frustration on the part of those fighting for justice for the Palestinians and for the peoples of the region, as a whole.peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2006/07/jeff-blankfort-influence-of-israel-and.html

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Hezbollah Captures 2 Israeli Soldiers:

Hezbollah militants captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid Wednesday, and dozens of Israeli troops crossed the frontier with warplanes, tanks and gunboats to hunt for the captives.tinyurl.com/h34xy

The United States blamed Syria and Iran on Wednesday for the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah militants and an eruption of violence along the southern border of Lebanon.tinyurl.com/jdnzg

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Brian Whitaker: Borderline beneficiaries:

The frequent Israeli incursions into Lebanese airspace have figured in two UN reports on the implementation of resolution 1559, though they attracted almost no media attention. More recently, there was the case of a terrorist cell uncovered in Lebanon that has carried out at least two assassinations, apparently with backing from Mossad.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13967.htm

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Yesha rabbis call for ‘extermination of the enemy’:

The Council called on the IDF to ignore Christian morals and “exterminate the enemy in the north and the south.”tinyurl.com/ekvwo

The death toll from a series of bombs that struck Bombay’s packed commuter trains rose Wednesday to 200, and India demanded that Pakistan dismantle the “infrastructure of terrorism,” but leveled no direct accusation at its rival for the attacks.tinyurl.com/lygsn

SLAMABAD: Amidst charges that several people have been kidnapped by ISI and Military Intelligence (MI) for interrogation, Pakistan’s Defence Ministry has washed its hands off the controversy claiming it had no operational control over these agencies to verify allegations of illegal abduction and detention.tinyurl.com/keetc

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US military exercise ‘violates’ North Korea’s sovereignty: officia:

North Korea accused the United States of running a “massive” military exercise off the Korean Peninsula, which Pyongyang’s vice foreign minister said was a “serious violation of the principles of sovereignty”.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060711/pl_afp/nkoreaussafrica

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China and Russia offer rival UN draft on N. Korea:

China and Russia introduced a U.N. Security Council resolution on Wednesday that would urge North Korea to suspend its nuclear program but avoid mandatory weapons-related sanctions as sought by Japantinyurl.com/jaw9j

The reason Putin is now attracting continuous criticism from the lords of the West has nothing to do with the very real contraction of democracy and increasing authoritarianism in Russia.tinyurl.com/hxco4

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Gorbachev: ‘Americans Have a Severe Disease’:

“We have made some mistakes,” he said, referring to recent attacks on Russia’s democracy. “So what? Please don’t put even more obstacles in our way. Do you really think you are smarter than we are?”abcnews.go.com/GMA/print?id=2182020

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Ukraine coalition born in chaos :

The parties which supported the mass protests of the Orange Revolution had been on the verge of forming a government, but that coalition collapsed last week.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5169068.stm

China and Russia have agreed to support a United Nations resolution demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment or face economic penalties, France’s foreign minister said after a major-power meeting in Paris.tinyurl.com/z4htl

Protesters gathered outside the country’s 300 electoral districts before heading to the capital, where a mass rally is planned for Sunday to denounce official results showing conservative Felipe Calderon as the apparent winner of the July 2 election.tinyurl.com/gjfsb

U.S. government purchase data on Mexico’s 65 million registered Voters ;

A probe has been launched into how the Atlanta-based corporation ChoicePoint Inc. was able to purchase data on Mexico’s 65 million registered voters as well as six million licensed drivers in Mexico City.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3186.htm

Pinochet and his son deny the charges. His son said he would sue Contreras, whom he called “a liar” and “a monster”.tinyurl.com/ha66z

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German anger at orchestration of visit by Bush to see Merkel :

The reception party includes 300 soldiers dressed in civilian clothes. Ordinary people have been told to stay indoors. All shops in the town’s historic market have been shut, and cars, rubbish bins and flowerpots have been removed.www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1818414,00.html

Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra also suggested some unauthorized leaks could have been deliberate attempts to help al Qaeda.tinyurl.com/flfqc

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U.S. May Want More Bank Data:

The administration debates whether to force American institutions to turn over information on all international wire transfers.tinyurl.com/h6hrm

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Texas Tribe Sues Abramoff, Reed:

It’s still unclear whether Ralph Reed has anything to fear from Justice Department prosecutors, but he’s not going to get away without at least one legal headache.www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001113.php

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Congressman Tom Feeney: :

Feeney, a close ally of the religious right and of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, is known as an eccentric lawmaker. He’s also one of the most corrupt members of Congress according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in part because he went on a golfing trip to Scotland in 2003 that was paid for by Jack Abramoff.harpers.org/sb-congressman-tom-feeney-an-appreciation-1152659942.html

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Enron Fraud case: Key NatWest Three witness found dead:

A KEY witness in the case of the NatWest Three has been found dead. The dramatic development comes on the eve of the extradition to the US of the three British bankers.tinyurl.com/grmm2

The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13952.htm

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Israeli Blood-sport in Gaza

By Mike Whitney

Another 50 civilians have been bumped-off in gangland-style hits authorized by the Knesset’s newest Mafia Don, Ehud Olmert. Olmert has put the carnage and destruction into high-gear eliciting criticism from his very own daughter who protested in front of her father’s home with signs that said, “Stop the Killing”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13948.htm

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Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Soldiers

By Cindy Sheehan

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13956.htm

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Militarism and the Corporate Welfare State

By Charles Sullivan

One need only examine the history of this nation to recognize the familiar patterns of conquest and oppression. The occupation of Iraq is the continuation of the policies that created the institution of slavery, following the genocide of the Indians. The military, far from being a defender of peace and freedom, has evolved into an extension of the corporate welfare state.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13953.htm

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Nationalize the US Defense Industry:

Public Good Should Trump Private Greed

By John Stanton

“Converting the companies to publicly-controlled, nonprofit status would introduce a key change: it would reduce the entities’ impetus for aggressive lobbying and campaign contributions. Chartering the defense contractors at the federal level would in effect allow Congress to ban such activities outright, thereby controlling an industry that is now a driving force rather than a servant of foreign policy objectives.”www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13954.htm

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Diplomatic Deception: The Calm Before the Firestorm

by Chris Floyd

While the well-wadded poltroons at Time and the Times serve up Karl Rove’s comfort food about a more “mature” and sensible Bush foreign policy, the world is actually drawing closer and closer to a even deeper level of darkness.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13957.htm

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Death toll in India train bombings at least160:

Seven bombs hit Bombay’s commuter rail network during rush hour Tuesday evening, killing 160 people and wounding more than 300 in what authorities called a well-coordinated terrorist attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility in the bombings, which came in quick succession — a common tactic employed by Kashmiri militants.tinyurl.com/s395c

Abdi Hassan Awale Qeydiid, Somalia’s last secular warlord in the capital Mogadishu, has surrendered to Islamic militants after a two-day battle that left at least 67 dead, militants said.tinyurl.com/fml7o

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60 Afghan civilians dead in US air strikes:

“The aircraft pounded three villages namely Deh Jauze, Sarosah and Kakrak, 12 km away from Trinkot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan, early on Monday. The strikes lasted from 1:00 am to 4:00 am,” said Abdul Khaliq, a provincial official.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13947.htm

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Attacks Across Iraq Kill at Least 47 in bloody day of U.S. occupation:

Among his many other crimes, Bush deserves impeachment for that naked string of lies to the American people and his coverup of the leak scandal we now know he initiated. His co-conspirator was, of course, Dick Cheney.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13955.htm

Four Palestinians have died in recent days awaiting entry into the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing,tinyurl.com/kkkr2

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Israeli Occupation Forces readies ‘massive’ Gaza incursion:

Israeli Occupation Forces were gearing up Tuesday afternoon for a planned massive incursion into the Gaza Strip.tinyurl.com/g332y

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Israeli MP: Meshal is a Dead Man :

During a Monday evening Channel 1 TV interview, MK (Labor) Danny Yatom stated that Hamas politburo leader Khaled Meshal is marked for death, and the “long arm of Israel” will eventually reach him as wellwww.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=106970

I cannot think of anything in recent times to compare with the Israeli terror tactics against the people of Gaza where the mightiest military nation in the region picks on the poorest, weakest and most vulnerable of peoples and pounds them and their infrastructure by night and day with bombs, artillery and tank shells.www.theherald.co.uk/features/65594.html

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Six Human Rights Groups Petitioned Israeli High Court:

Six human rights groups petitioned the Israeli High Court demanding that the crossings in Gaza be opened to allow for the steady and regular supply of fuel, food, medicine, and equipment, including spare parts needed to operate generators.www.acri.org.il/english-acri/engine/story.asp?id=322

Iran has vowed not to cave in to international pressure, while its nuclear envoy, Ari Larijani, warned of a “long road” ahead before Tehran’s atomic standoff with the West can be resolved.www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=133131

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Russia believes Iran decades from nuke:

Russia believes Iran to be 25 to 30 years away from possession of nuclear arms, but U.S. experts disagree.tinyurl.com/jurzr

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Our Last Chance? :

The United States, should it attack Iran, will have created for itself a dilemma very similar to that of Israel, but on a much larger scale. We will have begun an endless struggle with much of the Muslim world, one in which we can inflict punishment without ever reaching any kind of political solutionhistoryunfolding.blogspot.com/2006/07/our-last-chance.html

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China rejects N Korea sanctions:

China has again rejected possible UN sanctions against North Korea over Pyongyang’s missile tests last week.tinyurl.com/hcv9k

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China says Japan overreacts to N Korea :

China said on Tuesday that Japan’s attempt to seek a United Nations resolution against North Korea was “overreaction” and would only add to tensions in the region.tinyurl.com/frt8a

The Senate’s Republican leader said Tuesday he will push legislation to add North Korea to a nonproliferation act that currently outlines sanctions against foreign individuals who supply weapons technology to Iran and Syriawww.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/7/11/123202.shtml?s=ic

The world is at the beginning of the end of the age of oil, according to a growing body of analysts. It stands at a precipice of “peak oil” – the point at which oil producing countries can no longer keep up with growing demand, where production climaxes and then plunges into irrevocable decline.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20060710/

Right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer has weighed in against the Supreme Court’s latest ruling in Hamdan, claiming that the Court erred in barring President Bush from denying Guantanamo detainees the protections of the Third Geneva Convention.www.counterpunch.org/lindorff07112006.html

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Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?:

A Nuremberg chief prosecutor says there is a case for trying Bush for the ‘supreme crime against humanity, an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.’www.alternet.org/story/38604

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PanAfrica: Aid for the Poor, Not for the Consultants:

“Money is being spent on consultants who are earning up to 1,000 dollars a day,” Caroline Sande Mukulira, South Africa country director for ActionAid International, told IPS Wednesday.allafrica.com/stories/200607060070.html

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Mexico: Obrador cries fraud with election videos:

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost Mexico’s contested presidential election showed what he called video proof of fraud on Monday and refused to commit to accepting a final court ruling on the results.tinyurl.com/syuxu

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Gringo tactics don’t help Mexico:

The ongoing election dispute in Mexico has many similarities to what happened in Florida in 2000.
Coincidence? Not when you consider that some of the people who helped George W. Bush prevail in 2000 have been working in Mexico to help Felipe Calderon and his National Action Party (PAN) in 2006.www.reformer.com/editorials/ci_4035469

A federal judge heard arguments in a suit arguing that US President George W. Bush overstepped his authority when he authorized the use of warrantless wiretaps on Americans.tinyurl.com/redx3

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Vermont judge rejects U.S. Supreme Court search ruling:

A Vermont District Court judge has rejected a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the power of police to search a private home, concluding that the state offers greater protections in such cases.tinyurl.com/q3kmz